Journalist Freed

Finally, some sort of justice has been served in that twisted ongoing conflict near the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In a move that was nothing short of a miracle, freelance journalist Jill Carroll was allowed by a group of Iraqi Insurgents to return home to her family. However, let us not praise the captors for their compassion just yet. For three months, she was forced to live under the strict control of the band of cowards that kidnapped her, who call themselves the Revenge Brigade. Her life was threatened more than once, and the night before they released her, she was forced to make a propaganda video for their website. (DDOS attack, anyone?) "Words that are coerced are not worth dying over," said Micah Garen, a journalist who went through a similar experience in august of 2004.

She wasn’t as lucky as her friend and fellow journalist, Allan Enwiya, who was murdered by the Brigade a few months ago. It is hard to see whether or not the fact that she was a woman had any bearing on her kidnapper’s decision to free her. The type of scum that snatched her up is not known for its compassion towards females.

News reports have said that Miss Carroll will be returning home soon. She is understandably shaken from her three-month long ordeal. It is unimaginable what she went through. I, for one, hope her former captors are caught in a sandstorm filled with flying scorpions and stung to death slowly while they are flung through the sand dunes of whatever part of the desert they are now befouling with their presence.

All anger aside, though, it is a happy day to see her come home. It is one less senseless casualty in this foul, ill-mannered conflict. Too many times, in the past few months, we have focused on the morbid side of this conflict. Finally, if only for a few paragraphs, we can celebrate an innocent life being saved.

Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. Soon we will be back to the same death and destruction that is custom in times of war such as these.

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